


No One Ever Said It Would Be This Hard

by sunlightsmarrow



Series: Nobody Said It Was Easy [6]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, I know, M/M, everything is hurt/comfort, it's short, they finally get around to it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-14
Updated: 2015-02-14
Packaged: 2018-03-12 20:34:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3354392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunlightsmarrow/pseuds/sunlightsmarrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Picking up just where we left off.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No One Ever Said It Would Be This Hard

Bucky’s back hit hard against the door. His eyes were wide and excited and he was pushing against Steve’s strong grip, but Steve’s face conveyed something entirely different. 

“Steve?” Bucky looked hurt. There was so much confusion in his eyes, and then he suddenly realized. “I understand, Steve. Really. I want this, more than anything.” He tried to tilt his head forward to capture his best friend’s lips, but Steve pushed him against the wall and stepped away, scratching the back of his neck and sinking onto the couch. “I thought you wanted to…”

“We can’t, Buck. I don’t want to do that to you. What if this isn’t what you think it is?” Steve couldn’t raise his eyes to the bright blue pools that were misting over as if a thick fog had fallen over a lagoon.

“Is there someone else?” His mouth was turning red and pouting. God, Steve didn’t need him to cry. Not again, not after every time that Steve tried to shh him, to hold him close and make it better if better could happen even remotely.

“No, Buck. Only you.” Steve paused. This didn’t make sense to Bucky, but there was just too much risk. But all the poor boy wanted was some affection. It wasn’t time. “But I don’t want to hurt you. You’ve been through too much.”

“You won’t hurt me. No one can hurt me anymore. How can you burn ashes?” Bucky sat down on the floor across from Steve and angrily played with his shoelaces. “There isn’t any love in this world anymore. I’ve seen how people treat each other.”

“What?” Steve’s brows furrowed together. “Are you feeling pitiful because no one loves you?”

They finally looked at each other. Bucky’s mouth hung slack, and color raised in his cheeks. He was silent. He tucked his knees up to his chest and pressed his forehead down. “Please.” Tears traced down his face, but Steve couldn’t see them. 

“Look at me, Bucky!” Steve was angry. They had come so far and Bucky wanted to just jump into this without thinking. They had been so good with communication, and now Bucky thought that he could just shut down and everything would be okay. Steve grabbed Bucky’s metallic arm and squeezed it as if it could be felt.

“This isn’t you.”

“This has defined me for years!” Bucky’s voice was a deafening roar. “You can not begin to understand how I felt. You can not begin to understand how I didn’t feel. I felt everything. And the second I have an ounce of hope that you could care enough for me to manifest it, you tell me that I’m not ready. What do you know?” He took a staggering breath. His eyes were red and bloodshot and he was a monument to ages of hate and anger and depression that stood before a monument to love, joy, and justice. 

Steve knew he had been wrong. He knew as soon as the words left his mouth that he had made an error. But if Bucky was assuming that Steve didn’t love him, he was sorely mistaken. Steve loved him more than he had loved anyone and had for the longest time. 

“I love you.” Steve dropped his hand. “I didn’t...I’m sorry.”

“I don’t think you do, you know. You were so sure that I was an ungrateful--” Bucky had gone on attack mode. He was ready to cut Steve down as far as he could go.

“Yes. That was a mistake. I...You never left my mind.”

“Don’t think that saying shit like that this fixes the problem.” Bucky stood and backed away, and suddenly Steve understood. Bucky wasn’t actually mad at him. He was venting all of that time where no one thought of him except in respect for their own gain. “It doesn’t. I don’t believe in that anymore. You don’t care. How could you? A sworn enemy.”

“We were friends, Buck.”

“And you let go. On the train. You let go.”

Steve blinked. Oh, God. Not that. Anything but that. Steve’s eyes burned and he stepped back to fall onto the couch again. He grabbed at his hair and all of a sudden, Bucky was there, his hands on his knees, stroking back and forth in an oddly comforting motion. “I blacked out before I hit. And when I woke up, it hurt so bad. It was gone, completely, hanging above me in a tree, dripping onto my face, teasing me.” His metal arm traced circles on Steve’s thigh. “And I thought about how you’d have to push it behind you. My first thought was about you and how you couldn’t be thinking about me.”

“You drove me. That was all I could think about. I crashed because there was no way you would be there to care.” This wasn’t fixing anything. This was just making both of them feel more like shit, and maybe this wasn’t supposed to be the sort of thing that was perfect and wonderful. Perhaps this was supposed to be wrecked and broken and awful.

So Steve decided to press forward just then, pressing their lips together. Something combusted in his belly and _dear Lord_ this was dangerous and bad. Bucky’s good hand latched itself to Steve’s neck and he peppered kisses to his lips, pressing harder and harder each time.

“I needed you,” he breathed when he had the chance, and Bucky came at him with renewed fervor. “Every day, a special sort of hell.” He was everywhere at once, touching, kissing, gripping through clothes that were only a hindrance. In a tangle of limbs, they fell flush onto the couch. “And I’m so sorry. For everything. I’d kill those bastards myself a thousand times.”

“Shut the hell up, Steve.” Their kissing got more intense as the time passed. Skin contacted skin and shirts were forgotten on the floor, and they sat in each others laps, kissing lazily and pulling at each others hair, when Steve stopped, just holding Bucky in his arms. Bucky rolled over and pressed his ear to Steve’s chest, listening to his heartbeat.

“Did you know that this is the most comforting thing in the world? Reminds us of our mothers.” Steve played with Bucky’s hair, relishing in the softness that brushed against his chest. They fit together like puzzle pieces that had been pushed in the wrong way for the longest time, only to be turned the right way and finally locked into place. 

Silence passed between them, so comfortable like an ancient forest. “Are you okay?”

Bucky’s hand ran over Steve’s chest and his breath hitched with the sensation. “I had lost myself for a while back there. You reminded me of back then, and I don’t think you realized. The teasing...too much like the lab.” The heartbeat was slowing beneath his ear and the hand was slowing. Steve was growing some stubble on his chin and cheeks. His breath was slowing. Steve was falling asleep. Bucky moved, sliding his torso across Steve’s, and pressed a kiss against his jugular, feeling the heartbeat there as well. It smelled like Steve in that corner of his body, and tucking his face there, into the crook of his neck, Bucky closed his eyes, and let the protective blanket of security and love tuck around him.


End file.
